


The Boy and His Box

by backintimeforstuff



Category: Doctor Who, Doctor Who (2005)
Genre: F/M, Fluff, Season/Series 05
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-04-04
Updated: 2020-04-04
Packaged: 2021-02-28 22:15:31
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,760
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23484430
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/backintimeforstuff/pseuds/backintimeforstuff
Summary: Amy hopes the Doctor considers her with as much love as he does an auburn sky; melting his eyes and his mind right through her, drinking her in until the stars come out. She wonders whether his attention is entirely got by her - lingering when she walks away, thinking about her endlessly the way she does with him. It’s improbable of course, but she likes to pretend.
Relationships: Eleventh Doctor/Amy Pond
Kudos: 7





	The Boy and His Box

Amy hopes the Doctor doesn’t notice when she smiles, because she does it quite a lot. Sometimes she thinks she wouldn’t mind him knowing, but then again, he’d only saunter over and ask her why; and she doesn’t have an answer to that. Well, it’s not one she can put into words. It’s not one she can tell him. 

Half the time it turns out being the most inadvertent smile in the world, no matter what she’s feeling - be it, proudness, or happiness, gladness or otherwise. It just seems to happen, and she’s past trying to put her finger on it, because deep down, past every single chasm she can think of; she knows.

It’s him. It’s always him. 

It doesn’t matter what he’s doing; he could be saving the world or reading a book for all she cares. She just smiles, and she never, ever, wants to stop. She’s never before met anyone so blatantly wonderful, and it confuses her because she doesn’t even think he knows. He’s completely oblivious to the fact that he seems to shine; in such a brilliantly magical way, shrouded in the deepest, richest, midnight starlight. Curiosity and sheer hopefulness follow him around like an ever-present golden glow, and even as Amy’s swept up in it, engulfed by it to the very ends of the universe – he doesn’t bat an eyelid. He can’t see, it, and she doubts he ever will be able to. In spite of everything, it’s that oblivion that seems to make her stop and smile the most. 

For the most intelligent man in the universe, lots of little things seem to pass him by. Forget his own magnetism, Amy’s found, there’s so much he simply doesn’t notice. Sometimes she laughs at the thought of his nonchalance, because it doesn’t even irritate her in the way she imagines it might. It’s almost oddly endearing, the way he can be so unaware of the stars and the people surrounding him. Wrapped up in his own complexity with his mind working overtime, smile at him is all Amy can do. He won’t exactly catch her. 

Most days, it begins with her decent into the control room, one hand on the banister as she watches him from the top of the staircase. Whatever he throws at her later – be it, a picnic or the literal end of the universe – it doesn’t matter. In these moments, it’s the calm before the storm, the quietness of dawn, and she smiles because he hasn’t noticed her yet. He hasn’t noticed her gazing at him with all the wonder in the world, her smile shining like starlight. God, she adores him when he’s like this. If she’s being honest, in those precious moments, what she loves the most is the way he just seems to stand there. Oblivious or otherwise, she loves the way he can be so absorbed in the scanner screen, light eyes trained on oracles, long fingers resting atop the console or under his chin in deep thought. Sometimes he’ll be listening so intently to the sounds of the universe, entirely besotted by his time ship that he won’t even look up until she makes the first move. She could stay standing, smiling, watching forever, and well, everything would just stay the same. It’s in these moments her smiles are the most inadvertent, because, frankly, he’s doing very little at all. For a man who claims to be bored easily, she’s found herself falling in love with his attention span – with his bizarre capacity to be fascinated by something for hours and hours on end. Sometimes he’ll make a point of gazing at the stars through a telescope, or considering auburn skies on maps and charts Amy can’t even begin to understand.

Of course, at this point, she finds herself smiling at just how alien he is. To her, he is nothing short of an impossibility, a double-edged sword she hasn’t quite got the hang of holding yet. One minute she’s caught up to the ends of the Earth in his humanity, and in the next, well, he’s giving her a look she can’t even begin to describe. Some days his gazes are like nothing she’s ever seen before, but she’s convinced, that out amongst the distant stars, they make perfect sense. She can watch as the fire in his eyes gleams to be unspeakably otherworldly, almost dangerous in its love and loss of all the stars themselves. It’s funny, really, Amy thinks, as she feels her lips curl, because it doesn’t even matter. It doesn’t matter that he’s a mystery to her, because that’s what makes him extraordinary. She’s past besotted without knowing, and she isn’t sure she ever wants to. 

Deep into his mystery, in his capacity as the last of his kind, the Doctor is a delight. There’s nothing Amy loves more than watching him from afar, smiling at the weird and wonderful rituals he partakes in. Catch sight of him in the TARDIS library, well, that’s a whole evening gone as far as she’s concerned – his perpetual reading of ancient manuscripts and scrolls is enough to take her breath away He’ll lean back in his chair by the fire, thousands of books upheld by their cavernous arches, at ease with absolutely everything. She’s pretty sure he’d sit there for eternity if she let him – absorbed in an entire history only he can remember. 

Every so often, after nights like these, Amy realises just how alone the Doctor really is. Occasionally she catches him standing alone in the control room, his very posture reminiscent of a lonely, ancient creature. Sometimes she’ll watch him when he thinks she can’t see him, whispering and singing to his old girl in the long-lost language of their people. The boy and his box; they are the sole survivors. God, she wishes she could tell him how sorry she is. He whistles as he cleans and he dances alone, arms outstretched with his eyes closed, as if he’s holding her; that impossible preposterous, gorgeous time machine of his. He tells her how much she’s saved him, although Amy’s pretty sure the TARDIS already knows. It might be heart wrenching at the best of times, but it doesn’t mean she can stop herself from smiling at it, sadly, even more in love with his impossibility than she’s ever been before. And while she might hate to admit it, she loves nights like these. She gets to see the Doctor for who he really is; having striped off a layer of his complexity. On these nights, it’s just him. He’s not having to be some kind of hero; a brave leader, or even the cleverest in the room. It’s on a night like this when she first sees him cry. 

Out on adventures, when they eventually get around to them; his alien-nature still emanates through it all. Forget the crazy outer space stuff he shows her; because she knows it’s not even about that. It’s about the way he turns to her in the midst of it all, offering her smiles, a hand to hold, and bits wisdom she’ll remember forever. In amongst his bow-tie ramblings, sometimes he’ll catch her completely off guard with the simplest of phrases; ones which end up sitting somewhere between her soul and the end of everything. She remembers him once, all legs and braces, swinging leisurely from the seat under the console. 

“Being alive right now is the best thing there is.” 

Out of the blue, she smiles a lot at that one. 

Certainly, on the topic of memories she smiles at – their escapade with Vincent van Gogh ticks a lot of boxes. She remembers feeling so completely safe with him then, regardless of everything – all the injustice and the rest of it. The night he’d taken her hand under the starry sky, well, she remembers smiling at that at the time, never mind just in hindsight. It was the moment she really felt it – his true alien nature; the heartbeats in his wrist telling her he was beyond anything she could ever have dreamed of. It felt as though he was anchoring her to the ground, existing as a source of gravity for everything she’d ever been through. God, if she told him any of this, she supposes he’d be flattered. 

Most often though, out on adventures, it’s not just his alien aurora that gets her to smile. She finds herself grinning from ear to ear on the sidelines, completely in awe and completely in love with the way he acts as a mad-cap diplomat. She couldn’t be prouder of anyone else. If his gazes confound her, his speeches are something else entirely; pulling the rug out from under her feet, leaving her floating in free-fall until he brings her back down with his unfailing charisma. It’s hardly surprising, Amy supposes, that the words he pulls out from his sleeves are beyond extraordinary. He’s as old as the stars themselves, and has had a lot of time to kill. Countless times he’s told people to simply be magnificent, or to save the world without even thinking. To Amy, it seems bizarre – his unfailing faith in humanity. In amongst the destruction of worlds, when she’s past seeing the chaos and the conflict, the Doctor always manages to find the positive. He’ll walk up and down, almost skipping on the balls of his feet like there’s a peace to be brokered – making her grin in spite of all the calamity that surrounds them. God love the optimist, she thinks. God love him. 

Things may be dangerous and confusing at the best of times, but Amy’s insanely glad that smiles are no stranger to her. No matter what happens, the Doctor always goes above and beyond – turning the inexplicable around his finger without a care in the world. It doesn’t matter whether they’ve been accosted, held hostage, or simply got lost – he will always; whatever happens, find a way to make her smile. Sometimes it’s a pretty direct approach – staring death in the face and making a joke out of it just to kill some time and take the upper hand. Other times though, Amy finds herself smiling at the insanity of it all – of him coming to save her with no time left to lose. Inches from the end of her life, he’ll always turn up – late, as ever - and save her from the edge of destruction, pulling her away from the hellfire. She’s stupidly in love with the way he’s able to hold and command a room, turning the tide onto his side no matter what happens. 

For a man so in tune with the rest of the universe, Amy loves that the Doctor seems to get by on an insane amount of luck. Tripping haphazardly – and often headfirst – into all kinds of situations, he never seems to have any kind of plan; nor any kind of common sense. Friend or foe, otherworldly or otherwise, no disaster is too small for the man at the helm of a time machine; so enthralled and thrilled with absolutely everything. Day in day out, he’s falling in love with the stars, and Amy’s falling in love with him. When she stops to think about it, she supposes his chaotic spontaneity would have driven her mad by now, if she wasn’t completely besotted by it. She’s infatuated with the way he throws himself at everything and anything, ambling about with a contagious grin. It’s hardly surprising she smiles. Even on days off; lounging around in the TARDIS, things are no different. Amy’s lost count of how many times she’s walked in on him – chaos radiating from his very being. She smiles at the stupid amount of times he spends fixing the console to no avail, getting caught up in a sea of wires only to start all over again. His joyful relentless is itself a joy to behold, his constant presence nothing short of a wonder. He’d fiddle about with levers and dials for eternity if she let him, and at the moment, she’s considering it. 

Sometimes, when Amy manages to tear her thoughts away just long enough, she thinks about everything that’s happened to her. But then of course, she’s straight back to thinking about him, because without the Doctor and his stupid bow-tie, she would be nothing. The two of them are so intrinsically intertwined, she’s almost surprised they don’t share the same thoughts, or indeed, the same heartbeats. Together they’re a force to be reckoned with, and she’s praying with everything she has that she never loses him. He might be impossible, preposterous and ridiculous, but he’s been an incredible source of comfort for her, for as long as she can begin to remember. The little Scottish girl and her imaginary friend, well, they’ve been together forever. It’s always been him, and her, and every single star that ever was. She hopes it never changes. 

Thinking about it, she’s insanely glad that he even puts up with her. He’s not the only one prone to bouts of unpredictability, as both of them well know. Amy herself can go rambling on for days about something or other – not that she likes to admit it. Sometimes in the middle of one of her anecdotes, she looks up to see him watching her, smiling with his eyes at the words tumbling out of her mouth. Console room, library, wherever, he’ll look over enough starlight in his eyes to take her breath away. So, of course, she just smiles straight back at him. They’ll stay grinning at one another for a bit – lost completely in each other – until one of them inevitably breaks off to laugh. Her dearest raggedy man, God, he means the world to her. In all of her flaws and human nature, he seems entirely content with her, with who she is, and who she grew up to be. In all of his ancient wisdom, she could never ask for anything more. She hopes he considers her with as much love as he does an auburn sky, melting his eyes and his mind right through her, drinking her in until the stars come out. She wonders whether his attention is entirely got by her - lingering when she walks away, thinking about her endlessly the way she does with him. It’s improbable of course, but she likes to pretend. 

One thing she knows for certain, is that he listens to her. Intently, and forever, when she’s talking, he’ll stop and absorb everything and anything she tells him. Be it rambling, or persistent questioning, he’ll always have an answer for her; whatever she comes up with and whatever she enquires. Above much else, she quite likes the assurance. If she’s the one to cause chaos, out on adventures or wherever they are, she knows he’ll be delighted by it – and by her. Whenever she does something she knows he’d be proud of, well there’s another smile – and it’s a particularly mischievous one at that. Having an upper hand against ancient monsters is assertive at the best of times, but knowing the Doctor has your back – well, it’s a feeling she can’t even begin to describe.

Back when she was a kid, she’d been longing for endless days of starlight. For heroes and for fairy-tales, for the greatest adventure she could even begin to imagine. That ridiculous man in his little blue box; he’s lived up to it all. Thinking about it, about how much he’s saved her; Amy Pond smiles and smiles, and on no account is she ever going to stop. Wondering the labyrinth of TARDIS corridors, she often finds herself grinning from ear to ear; for she still can’t believe where she really is. At this point, she’s waited more than half her life to be standing right here, entwined in the very essence of his impossible time-ship. She thinks she should really go and tell him how grateful she is; but she hopes he already knows. At any rate, confessing isn’t really her style.

Halfway between the kitchen and the golf course though, she changes her mind. For all the mundane things she could be doing right now, living out a normal human life on Earth; she’s right here. The whole universe is beneath her feet and her greatest fantasy is mere minutes away from her. The boy and his box; he’ll be nose deep in a book and she knows it. She smiles. It’s time to find him, and tell him the truth.


End file.
